By Peggy Janich | Research Associate
25 years of promoting research - a story of continuous success
At the end of 2016, the Swiss Cancer Research foundation (SCR) celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1991, SCR raised three million Swiss francs for research funding. A quarter of a century later this amount has increased more than fivefold. However, an annually growing number of research projects accompanied this steady increase in money raised. Initially, we received 50 projects each year. Today, researchers submit around 200 cancer research projects amounting to a requested total of 50 to 60 million Swiss francs per year to the SCR and its partner organization the Swiss Cancer League. Unfortunately, as financial means are limited, only one third of these projects can be supported. For this reason, it is highly important to carefully evaluate and select the most outstanding projects. To this end, the SCR relies on the expertise of a scientific committee working in close collaboration with international experts in cancer research.
Since immunotherapies have emerged as one of the most promising fields in the fight against cancer, SCR spends a substantial amount of its funds every year to advance basic and clinical research in this area.
A recently completed project focused on the treatment of blood-borne cancers such as lymphoma or leukemia. While cancer immunotherapy of solid tumors aims at the stimulation of a certain type of white blood cells, so-called T cells, another type of white blood cells termed natural killer cells, has been proven to attack and kill blood-borne cancers. The research team generated a new antibody complex containing the immune-cell stimulating molecule interleukin-2 and tested it in different preclinical models of cancer. These complexes were not only able to enhance anti-tumor effects of natural killer cells, but also significantly reduce the side effects in comparison to previously used molecules.
(Swiss Cancer Research reference number: KFS-3375-02-2014; original title: “Use of interleukin-2-antibody complexes to stimulate natural killer cells for immunotherapy of malignant hematological disorders”)
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